SF Giants: The good, the bad, and the ugly from the bullpen in 2022
If there's one thread that spans the generational gap between my late grandpa, my dad, and myself, it's Clint Eastwood's piercing gaze in Sergio Leone's genre-defining classic The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The broad power of Ennio Morricone's sweeping orchestral score makes the Mexican standoff such an enduring and timeless moment in cinema history that it stands as an archetype you can apply to almost anything. In a bitter National League West, for example, you can always root on your favorite hero as they oppose the beady eyes of Il Cattivo draped in Dodger blue, crossing your fingers that the Padres don't emerge from their ugly past to throw a wrench into the narrative.
For the SF Giants, though, 2022 saw them stub their toe, trip on a rock, fall on a bridge, and contract dysentery before they could even make it to the arena. Still, the winding path back to that lonesome graveyard takes a village, and like any good sequel, the cast that remains will form the bedrock of the journey's ambitions. I hope you'll indulge me as I revisit the troubled ambitions of the Giants' bullpen in the fashion of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports
The good from the SF Giants bullpen
Camilo Doval's Breakthrough Season
Last year, as though conjured out of thin air, Camilo Doval appeared. It was as though the Giants threw a slug of iron into a forge and pulled out a red-hot Michelangelo. Throughout 2022, Doval tempered his mettle, adding a sinker to an already devastating arsenal to become an even more gleaming and perfect version of a late-inning strikeout machine.
Like Logan Webb in the rotation, Doval's 2022 served as a sort of proof-of-concept that his success last year was neither fluky or unsustainable. But unlike Webb, Doval's growth is so much easier to appreciate, in part because of its simplicity. Last year, Doval achieved surprising success with a two-pitch repertoire, but when one of those pitches failed him, he became mortal. But with the addition of a sinker, Doval now has more to draw from the well with.
Doval has a slider that's roughly as valuable as Max Scherzer's, a sinker that moves more than 95% of his peers , and one of the fastest fastballs anyone has ever seen (all numbers courtesy of Baseball Savant). His walks are a bit of a bugaboo, but if he continues to cultivate his pitches or whittle down the walks, we could see even better stuff out of one of the most fun young players on the Giants next year. Pontification aside, please enjoy this well-assembled compilation of Doval being absolutely filthy.
John Brebbia's Workhorse Season
For a team that relied on low innings counts from their starters more than most, John Brebbia was one of the most uniquely valuable and reliable pitchers from start to finish. Leading the league with 76 appearances this season, Brebbia made his case as a bullpen stalwart going into 2023.
Brebbia's value goes beyond a 3.18 ERA (27% better than league average, per ERA+). His versatility was his calling card as the Giants struggled to patch together innings as the year went on. 11 times Brebbia took the mound to start the game; 10 times the opposing team went down scoreless.
No great relief corps lasts forever and last year's ragtag assemblage of unlikely heroes couldn't repeat their success in 2021, but Brebbia has more than justified the Giants' gamble on him following Tommy John surgery. He seems primed to be a key contributor in the near future, and one less spot in the roster to worry about.
SF Giants reliever Tyler Rogers throws a pitch
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Tyler Rogers' Redemption
On May 24, Tyler Rogers entered an SF Giants game against the Mets in the eighth to help salt the game away. It was, after all, the role he'd perfected in 2021, when he put up a 1.24 ERA in 50.2 innings as a setup man.
On that day though, Rogers' performance fell short. While he left the game with a FIP that jumped up a whole 0.01 points, his ERA broke 7.00. It was a perfect storm of defensive frustration, sheer dumb luck, and the "so-bad-it's-good" quality of contact that Rogers induces regularly.
Two solid singles put runners on, but Rogers' ground-ball style is perfectly suited to getting him out of those kinds of jams. So of course the next single clanked off of third baseman Kevin Padlo for an infield hit. Then Dom Smith hit a seeing-eye grounder up the middle. A fielder's choice got an out at home. Another infield hit to Padlo. A third infield hit... off of Padlo. A Francisco Lindor triple provided the dagger that finally knocked out Rogers. 7 hits, some of them fluky, some of them not, added up to the worst outing for a San Francisco reliever ever - 0.1 IP, 7 H, 7 ER. It was like watching an Old West railcar hauling a three-ring circus going off the rails and crashing into a Jell-O swamp in slow motion.
Those are the kinds of outings that derail relievers' careers, especially ones whose fastball maxes out at around 85 mph. But Rogers, to his credit, never gave up. After that wretched May outing scarred his stat sheet, he put up a 2.63 ERA for the rest of the year, doing his best to finish out strong. He only got better and more reliable throughout the year, allowing no runs in 16.2 IP in the final month of the season, playing a key role in sustaining San Francisco's bullpen during their 19-11 September run. If the Giants improve their defense in 2023, look out - Tyler Rogers might once again become a force in the National League.
New Blood Making a Positive Impact
If Brebbia, Rogers, and Doval make sense as a preliminary 7-8-9 inning bullpen lineup, they'll still need a competent and versatile collection of arms to fill in around them. After a promising September, there seem to be a new wealth of pieces in place to make that happen.
SF Giants reliever Cole Waites throws a pitch.
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Cole Waites, a late-round draft pick in 2019, got the call-up in September to show off his skills. In a short sample size, he showed off a mid-90s fastball that plays well above its velocity. Why? Waites ranks in the 98th percentile of a stat called Extension, which measures how far off the ground a pitcher releases the ball. It's certainly no guarantee of major league success, but gives him an excellent foundation to build around.
Scott Alexander is a 33-year-old arbitration-eligible player, which means despite his age, he hasn't accrued enough major league experience to be a fully vested veteran. But his previous team released him despite a 2.31 ERA in 13 appearances last year. That team was the Dodgers.
Alexander seems to be following the Jake McGee career path, right down to getting snapped up by the Giants following a nice Dodgers tenure. He's another one-pitch wonder, this time with a sinker that ranked in the top-10 of baseball, albeit in an extremely small sample size. If he can keep up that level of effectiveness, he could end up being a nice addition to a team that puts heavy emphasis on using sinkers and sliders to keep hitters off-balance in today's fastball-heavy environment.
Thomas Szapucki had a weird season. On May 25, Szapucki made his MLB debut with the Mets and the Giants rocked him for 9 runs in 1.1 innings. Flash forward three months, and the Giants traded for him as part of the Darin Ruf-J.D. Davis swap. He rewarded them with 13.2 innings at the back end of the year, giving up only 3 runs. His youth and well-rounded pitch arsenal make him an interesting option to help the Giants out over the next two or three years, so long as the pitching staff feels they've ironed out whatever got him torched back in late May.
Finally, a quick shoutout to Luis Ortiz, who mopped up 8.2 innings at the end of the year with only 1 earned run allowed. He's also a long-time Giants fan, recalling memories of watching Todd Linden play, which might make him a better fan than me.
The bad from the SF Giants bullpen
A staple of modern-day roster construction is to maximize pitching leverage. For the Giants especially, this involves bridging the gap between short (4-6 inning) starts and select back-end relievers with a menagerie of arms that can be mixed and matched to minimize the damage. But in 2022, those options seemed to dry up. For every success story, another pitcher crashed hard, and it led to the Giants having the worst gap between their rotation and their bullpen in baseball.
If a busted bullpen this year was bad luck, it's still true that luck is the residue of design. And whether or not they planned on leaning on their bullpen, the Giants used their relievers more than nearly every other team in the league.
Of relievers who appeared in at least 10 games for the Giants this season, four of them delivered an ERA+ of 115 or greater, or having had a season 15% better than the average pitcher. Last year, the Giants had nine pitchers eclipse those marks. Still, that doesn't capture the full weight of the burden the bullpen left the team to carry.
Take all of those above average relievers last year, and count up their innings. They gave the Giants *461.1* innings of quality relief. That left exactly 100 innings last year with less-than-competitive relievers, and fewer than 80 innings by any reliever worse than average.
Flash forward to this year, where things were literally reversed. Now, they had nine relievers under the 115 ERA+ mark, and only four relievers over it. The number of innings thrown by "quality arms" dropped from 461.1 to 179.1. That's 282 innings of quality work the Giants needed to cover, equivalent to two full seasons from... well, Max Scherzer, who posted 145 innings this year with a 169 ERA+. And the crazy thing is that I'm actually underselling that difference, because the 9 best relievers for the Giants last year averaged an ERA+ 12 points *better* than Scherzer did this year. The difference is truly astonishing. Forget the Gausman vs. Rodón arguments, the Giants would've needed to sign Rodón AND Gausman AND Scherzer to make up for the bullpen regression this year.
The ugly from the SF Giants bullpen
If you've made it this far into the article, I know you're a true Giants fan. You're not just here for a little optimism (or pessimism) and some pithy notes so that you can remember "oh, yeah, that happened." You've opened your heart to the pain and ugliness that makes the never-guaranteed triumphs all the sweeter. I've sprinkled in teasers throughout the article about these moments, but it's time to relive them in their full-throated glory.
Zack Littell Blows Up
Let's take a trip all the way back to September 12. The Giants were a whole 67-73. The Braves, the same team that won the World Series ten months before and in the middle of a 101-win season, were getting shut out when Gabe Kapler lifted Alex Cobb after seven shutout innings, turning things over to Zack Littell.
Now let's play a game. Imagine you are a pitcher. In the span of 15 pitches, you face five batters, which go double-walk-single-single-GIDP. Despite loading the bases with no outs, you've managed to somehow get two outs without giving up the lead. A batter with a platoon advantage against you is coming to the plate, and the manager walks out to make a change. Here's where you can play the role of major league pitcher! Do you:
1. Thank your lucky stars that you haven't blown a three-run lead and hightail it to the dugout?
2. Stoically tip your cap to the catcher/manager for their trust in you, showing you can withstand the pressure of a high-leverage situation?
3. Slump your shoulders, slam the ball into your manager's glove, and let him hear it all the way back to the dugout?
If you chose option 3, ding ding ding! You might be just like Littell, who let the competitive spirit overtake him and vent his frustrations right on the middle of the field. Perhaps there's no better comparison for the relief corps' 2022 than the sight of Kapler dragging Littell behind him like a small child so that he can get a scolding in private for a completely avoidable mistake that everyone, pitcher included, knew was a bad idea as soon as it happened.
Littell's tantrum earned him a demotion for the rest of the season. In the context of the season, it's not nearly the worst thing that happened to the team, and I have sympathy for a guy who was frustrated by an underwhelming season. It's just unfortunate that it happened so publicly and in such a cringeworthy manner.
Tyler Rogers melts down
7 runs. 1 out. 7 runs. 1 out. If I was smart, I'd call up Tyler Rogers and pay him a cool ten grand to learn how he dealt with the aftermath of one of the worst and unluckiest nights that's ever happened to a San Francisco Giant (honorable mention to Hunter Strickland bombing a save and then breaking his hand, but at least half of that was completely his fault). Anyone who can live down that kind of historically colossal failure and keep plugging away for the rest of the year will never encounter a problem that truly defeats them for the rest of their life.
In truth, it was a team-wide meltdown. Even Pederson, who would later prove to be the hero with his three home runs, fell down on the Lindor triple that broke through to give the Mets the lead. But when your job is to induce contact, and the contact does *that*, what can you do? What can you say? Six singles and a triple.
In a rare show of zealous competency, the Giants' hitting corps picked up their fallen brother and came roaring back to win it. I'm glad they did, not just because it was the Giants, and not just because it gave us one of the wildest and most chaotic games in recent memory, but because if they didn't, there's a world in which Rogers doesn't pitch for San Francisco anymore because of it. And a world without Rogers pitching, as random and nerve-wracking and inscrutable as the results are, is a world that's worse off for it.
Jake McGee falls apart
RIP, Jake McGee. As in, Relief in Pitching. I hope he finds some because his 2022 offered anything but. Unlike Rogers, McGee's collapse was slow and irreversible. It's hard to explain quite how it happened, other than that his fastball velocity dipped from the 77th percentile in 2021 to the 64th in 2022, and for a pitcher that throws his fastball more than 80% of the time, that difference can mean a death sentence.
There were a few trouble spots that indicated that McGee wasn't quite the same pitcher. The first was May 1-9, when McGee made three appearances. On May 1st, he gave up three runs in the eighth inning. On May 5th, he gave up three runs in the seventh. On May 8th, he gave up three runs yet again. It's the tragic and unmistakable portrait of a pitcher that goes from "trusted late-inning reliever" to "inning-eating mop-up guy" right before our very eyes.
McGee seemed to bounce back for a bit, but after another ugly stretch, he was released into the wilderness of mid-season MLB free agency. It's a cautionary tale about the impermanence of being, a reminder to cherish the things we love while we've still got 'em. Sooner or later, everything turns to dust in your hands and pain in your heart.
The Giants give up
Speaking of tragedies so ugly they physically pain you, I've mentioned Gabe Kapler a few times now without any particular critique or praise. For the most part, I don't have any. I think the Giants have a fairly reasonable plan, and haven't had either the chance or the inclination to pull historically boneheaded moves like Kevin Cash removing Blake Snell in 2020 or Dusty pulling Russ Ortiz in 2002. But there is one moment in 2022 that falls squarely at Kapler's feet.
On August 10, the Giants squared off against the Padres in an essentially must-win series for them. A win would bring them a game within .500 and a game closer to the third Wild Card spot, and in the third inning, they took a four-run lead. In the bottom of the frame, the Padres' hitting machine cranked out six runs against starter Jakob Junis, erasing the deficit completely. No matter. The Giants were up to the task, scratching out three runs with a well-organized parade of singles, doubles, walks, and hit-by-pitches.
Then it came undone once more, this time at the hands of relievers Yunior Marte and Jarlin García. Marte, who had come in the inning before, couldn't get through the inning, and García allowed a home run that finished the tally and scored the sixth and seventh runs of the Padres' rally. It was all over after that. The Giants couldn't muster anything resembling a comeback, and they fell to 54-57.
Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
After the game, Kapler lauded Marte for "helping cover what was essentially a down game for us," It reveals an infuriating weakness in what's supposedly one of the smartest baseball departments in the league. Under no stretch of the imagination was that bout with the Padres a down game, and it certainly wasn't when Marte came in with the lead. It's baseball, and not every game is winnable - the old truism that each year you win 50 games, lose 50 games, and it's what happens in the other 62 that make your team what it is - but a mid-August game against a division rival while your season is slipping away? If there's any time to go for broke, try everything you've got to hold onto a lead, that's it.
For every hidden bright spot and potential breakout next year, it's hard to be excited about a team that's going to rely on forfeiting down games and being handed winning games. So if there's any margin to try to force even one of those lost games into a victory next year, the Giants will need to take full advantage. The Giants have shown they can do a lot, but they're going to have to go the extra mile next season to prove that they don't take a tough division, the fans' interest, and their own insight for granted. Otherwise, they shouldn't be surprised if the bullpen gives up a "down season" once again.
Final thoughts on the 2022 SF Giants bullpen
Part of the underlying cause for the Giants' lackluster 2022 was extreme overperformance in 2021 that was inadequately addressed in the offseason. Of the Giants' nine excellent relievers in 2021, eight of them had ERAs significantly lower than their FIP (which estimates ERA to attempt to emphasize things that pitchers more directly control, like strikeouts, walks, and home runs), often by more than a run.
Going forward, the SF Giants bullpen should have a trio of great late-inning options in Doval, Rogers, and Brebbia. From there, the Giants have plenty of intriguing, albeit less trustworthy, options to round out the group.
José Álvarez was excellent in 2021, but had a 5.28 ERA in 15 innings pitched before undergoing Tommy John Surgery. Injury may be the culprit here, but it seems hard to count on him in 2023.
Next we have Jarlín García, who had similar stats to Álvarez in 2021. But as one of the Giants' bullpen mainstays in both 2021 and 2022, it's harder to figure out if something specific and correctable happened to García this season, since his 2022 ERA almost exactly matches his 2021 FIP. He might still be okay, but the Giants probably shouldn't have expected him to be the magician he was last year.
Finally, we have Zack Littell. Littell's ERA blossomed from 2.92 to 5.08. His FIP changed by less than a run, but when you go from getting results to getting crushed, it's a little harder to be rosy about your prospects. His late-season outburst very well could have sealed his fate.
SF Giants season in review Part 1: Offense
